Akatsuki Is Finally Orbiting Venus
Japan’s Akatsuki Is Orbiting Venus
“The nail-biting maneuver that sent Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft into orbit around Venus this week is being celebrated by NASA scientists, eager to learn more about the atmosphere and climate of Earth’s enigmatic sister planet. At about 7 p.m. EST on Sunday, Dec. 6, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) commanded the climate orbiter to fire four thrusters, aimed at nudging the spacecraft into orbit around Venus. About a half hour later, JAXA/ISAS announced that the small probe had successfully achieved an elliptical orbit around Venus.”
I had no idea JAXA was working on a Venus spacecraft. Looking forward to reading some new stuff and photos about this planet. Wow, trajectory corrections over a five year period, talk about keeping objective in focus (and thanks to the bean counters that kept the funding for this spacecraft).
It was even more dramatic. A second payload was the IKAROS 14 meter solar sail which flew past Venus. It is still alive and phones home every so often.
JAXA has had some exciting missions such as the probe that landed for a half hour on an asteroid and then returned samples to the Earth.
Thank goodness. I hope they get some good science out of it, and I’m glad at least some of the cameras are still working after five years in interplanetary space.
Venus gets so few probes these days, we got to make the ones it does get count.
Between Hayabusa & Akatsuki, if I my spacecraft ever goes belly up, I’m calling JAXA. Impressive!
Another great save was the PAS-22 comm satelite. Launched in 1998, the 4th stage of a Proton failed leaving the satellite in a useless orbit. Using some very clever thinking, the satellite used its small engine to make make two separate flybys around the MOON(!) and end up in geosync orbit. The satellite operated until 2002.
All this time various engineers and companies have been taking nasty swipes at each other of who should claim credit for working out the rescue.
That was a great save. Even better than the NEAR recovery. I think JPL and APL will now be facing some international competition from other people who can navigate planetary missions.
Great save indeed. And there is plenty of competition by ESA, JAXA, ISRO and even CNSA has pulled some cool feats with Chang’e-2